Why is the cosmos ideally set up to support life?
The Sunday Times October 08, 2006
Goldilocks and the riddle of the perfect universe
Why is the cosmos ideally set up to support life? Physicist Paul
Davies tells Stuart Wavell about the point where science meets
religion.
Why is the universe, like the porridge in the tale of Goldilocks and
the three bears, "just right" for life? Even cosmologists have said
it looks like a fix or a put-up job. Is it a fluke or providence
that it appears set up expressly for the purpose of spawning
sentient beings?
Until recently the Goldilocks question was almost completely ignored
by scientists. But dramatic developments in our understanding are
propelling the issue to the forefront of the agenda, according to
the acclaimed British physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies.
To stoke the fire, he is to chair a debate between advocates of
alternative theories at Oxford on Friday.
Anyone expecting Davies to recant his non-religious views and join
the intelligent design lobby will be disappointed. "We can't dump
all this in the lap of an arbitrary god and say we can't inquire any
further," he says. "The universe looks ingenious, it looks like a
fix, and words like meaning and purpose come to mind. But it doesn't
mean that we're going to have a miracle-working cosmic magician
meddling with events."
What concerns him in his new book The Goldilocks Enigma is science
and the universe's stringent conditions for existence, so finely
tuned that even the slightest twiddle of the dials would wreck any
hope of life emerging in the universe. "No scientific explanation of
the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this
appearance of judicious design," he says.
Beyond the obvious prerequisites such as water, the sun's energy and
the various chemical elements (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc)
needed to make biomass, there's the tricky stuff. If protons were a
tiny bit heavier they would decay into neutrons, and atoms would
disintegrate. No carbon would have been formed by nuclear reactions
inside stars if the nuclear force varied by more than a scintilla.
This is where the acrimony starts. Some cosmologists claim the
bio-friendliness of the universe is explained by a multitude of
universes, known as the "multiverse". Lord Rees, a leading proponent
and president of the Royal Society, believes the laws of physics are
merely local bylaws that hold good for our universe but will be
different among our neighbours.
Such speculation has infuriated some particle physicists, particularly adherents of string theory, who aspire to a final
theory that will unify all physical laws and tie up the loose ends.
Their scorn for the multiverse theory is echoed by Frank Close,
professor of theoretical physics at Oxford and a participant in
Friday's debate, although he is no string theorist: "It's a cop-out.
To my mind it's no different from the idea that God did it. If we
cannot do any scientific experiments to prove what one of these
other universes would be like, it's beyond science. It's just giving
up."
Then there's the viewpoint of Richard Dawkins, the ardent Darwinist
and recent author of The God Delusion, who holds that life is
essentially pointless and came about by chance before natural
selection took over. Close compares Dawkins to religious
fundamentalists, "who know they are right in their position, just as
Richard knows he is right in his position".
Davies wants to rise above such bickering. "I want to get away from
this notion that something has to be accepted on faith," he
says. "That just becomes a sterile argument. These people can argue
all night, but you're never going to prove or disprove the other
person's position."
He is fascinated by an alternative answer to the Goldilocks question.
"Somehow," he writes, "the universe has engineered, not just its own
awareness, but its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have
conspired to make, not just life, not just mind, but understanding.
The evolving cosmos has spawned beings who are able not merely to
watch the show, but to unravel the plot."
What exactly is Davies saying? His starting point is the "highly
significant" fact that the universe supports people who understand
its laws. "I wanted to get away from the feeling in so many
scientific quarters that life and human beings are a completely
irrelevant embellishment, a side issue of no significance. I don't
think we're the centre of the universe or the pinnacle of creation,
but the fact that human beings have the ability to understand how
the world is put together is something that cries out for
explanation."
Davies's big idea goes back to the Big Bang. According to the
standard picture, the laws of physics were already in place at the
explosive origin of the universe. But he contends that perhaps the
universe and its laws emerged together in malleable form: "We would
expect that these laws were not infinitely precise mathematical
statements, but they would have a certain sloppiness or ambiguity
that could lead to observable effects from the earliest universe,
when these laws were still congealing."
So how did compatible life and mind come into being? Davies's
explanation, involving quantum mechanics and something called
backwards causation, is impossible to compress without
sounding "ludicrous", he confesses. He's right: it's impenetrable.
But this scenario requires an act of faith as great as that of any
religious believer. So hasn't he sidestepped the God question?
Science can meet religion on middle ground, he says, but a
superbeing who intervenes in events is anathema to most
scientists. "You have to understand that science deals with
hypotheses that can be tested, and religion proceeds from acts of
faith that can't be tested."
Davies has just left an academic job in Australia to delve further
into the origins of things at the provisionally named Blue Sky think
tank in Phoenix, Arizona. One of his first projects is to
investigate the possibility that life emerged not just once on
Earth, but thousands of times. The accepted wisdom is that all the
planet's life derives from a common ancestor, ranged on the tree of
life.
"The question is whether there's just one tree in the forest. If
life is easy to get going, we might expect many trees of life but
maybe only one tree survived. But maybe there are members of other
trees under our noses, but we don't appreciate what they are." He
conjectures a fertile phase starting four billion years ago when
ferocious cataclysms caused by comets and asteroids repeatedly
zapped emerging life on Earth before the present "tree" took root
3.5 billion years ago.
In writing his book, Davies was struck by how "ridiculous" all the
theories and options seemed. Perhaps, he muses, we have evolved to
think about the world in a certain way and we are posing the wrong
questions. "I wonder if we're just stuck in certain patterns of
thought and we're doomed to forever have these discussions and
arguments. Perhaps the real answers lie utterly beyond our ken."
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? by
Paul Davies is published by Allen Lane, £22. A debate, Confronting
the Goldilocks Enigma, will be held at the Oxford Playhouse at 5pm
on Friday (www.oxfordplayhouse.com)
>
> What concerns him in his new book The Goldilocks Enigma is science
> and the universe's stringent conditions for existence, so finely
> tuned that even the slightest twiddle of the dials would wreck any
> hope of life emerging in the universe. "No scientific explanation
> of the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this
> appearance of judicious design," he says.
>
Ancient Light
“. . . the universe began in a sort of explosion, starting from
infinite density and temperature, and has been expanding, thinning
out and cooling ever since. The beginning was not like an ordinary
explosion, in which debris flies out into a surrounding region of
nonmoving space. Instead the big bang explosion began everywhere.
There was no surrounding space for the universe to move into, since
any such space would be part of the universe. The concept boggles
the imagination . . .
. . . the universe was about 10(-8) seconds old (0.000,000,000,1)
when its material was as a temperature of 10(+14) degrees
(1,000,000,000,000,000). Any further extrapolation back in time
toward the big bang, towards higher temperatures, enters the realm
of speculation. Yet cosmologists have been forced to speculate. Many
of the properties of the universe may have been determined in the
first 10(-8) seconds and much earlier. If the grand unified theories
are correct, then their most interesting effects would have happened
when the universe was about 10(-35) seconds old. . . .
The essential feature of the inflationary universe model is that,
shortly after the big bang, the infant universe went through a brief
and extremely rapid expansion, after which it returned to the more
leisurely rate of expansion of the standard big bang model. By the
time the universe was a tiny fraction (perhaps 10[-32]) of a second,
the period of rapid expansion, or inflation, was over . . . The
epoch of rapid expansion could have taken a patch of space so tiny
that it had already homogenized and quickly stretched it to a size
larger than today’s entire observable universe . . . For the purpose
of illustration, we will assume that the inflationary epoch began
when the universe was 10(-35) seconds old and ended when it was 10(-
32) seconds old. At the beginning of the inflationary epoch, the
largest region of space that could have homogenized would have been
about 10(-35) light seconds in size, or about 10(-25) centimeters,
much smaller than the nucleus of an atom. At the end of the
inflationary epoch, this tiny homogenized region would have been
stretched to something like 10(+400) light years. . . .
Numerically the Planck density is about 10(+93) grams per cubic
centimeter. The infant universe had this enormous density when it
was about 10(-43) seconds old.”
Allan Lightman, Ancient Light
Harvard University Press 1991, p. 33-154.
The universe began as an explosion from an infinite density and
temperature; expanding, thinning and cooling since. It was an extra-
extraordinary explosion. Unlike normal blasts, where debris fly into
the surrounding nonmoving space, this was totally different. In fact
it’s conception staggers the imagination: there was no surrounding
space for it to move into as all the universe was compressed into
the subatomic sized origin — all existing space being part of it.
Nothing existed before the Big Bang!
The universe was only about 0.000,000,001 seconds old when its
material temperature was 100,000,000,000,000 degrees. Most of the
properties of this universe was determined during this period and
earlier still. Any attempt to go back into time would entail
speculation. However, if the grand unified theories are correct then
their most fascinating effects would have taken place when the
universe was .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001
seconds old!
The essence of the inflationary universe model is that, immediately
after the big bang, the newly born universe underwent a very brief
and extremely rapid expansion, before slowing down to the pace of
the standard big bang model. By the time the universe was
about .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 seconds old,
expansion was over. Within this extremely short period it had
already expanded and stretched from an infinitesimal small pinpoint
to a size much larger than today’s observable universe.
To illuminate this fact we will assume that the expansion began when
the universe was exactly .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,
000,001 seconds old, and ended when it was only .000,000,000, 000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,001 seconds old. At the beginning of
expansion the largest area was about .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,01 centimeters, a size far smaller than the nucleus of an atom.
Within that nano-second it had expanded to something like
1,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,
0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,000
0000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,000000
0000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,000000000
0,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,000000000,00
0000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,000000
0000,0000000000,0000000000 light years!
And one light year covers about 6,000,000,000,000 miles! And this is
just a fraction of the area that the most advanced telescopes can
detect from ancient light still coming from the initial Big Bang.
The universe is infinitely larger than is visible. In fact humans
will never know the actual size of the universe as it is still
expanding 15,000,000,000,000 years later!
The Planck density, a measure of weight, is about 10000000000,
0000000000,0000000000,0000000000,0000000000, 0000000000,0000000000,
0000000000 kilos per cubic centimeter. Our universe had this
enormous density when it was precisely .0000000000,0000000000,
0000000000,0000000 000,0001 seconds old! It should be noted that the
maximum size of the universe at this time was .000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,01 centimeters. This tiny fraction of an atom was
already weighing billions of trillions of quadrillions of
quintillions of tons! It takes a while for the sheer enormousness of
this astounding Truth to sink in. It defies logic and eludes
comprehension. The more the mind ponders the less it comprehends.
The brilliant scientists, whom the civilized world cherished for
their hair-splitting, or we could say, atom-splitting accuracy, have
hit a colossal cosmic Reality. They have now to prove how did the
pinpoint produce a universe that is now found to be vastly larger.
The ubiquitous questions of this century: How, why and what was that
primeval atom that formed an entire universe within a split second?
The question of the next millennium: “Who made this awesome atom?”
The more the human mind visualizes this brain-boggling nature and
awesome grandeur of creation the more humble it will become. There
will never be any scientific explanation to the origin of the
universe and if there is going to any at all, it will be
preposterous, to say the least. Science’s finest atheist minds are
already beginning to whisper ever so softly that there is something
else — the Almighty Creator!
Others are beginning to believe that humanity’s quest for Truth
through science is over. John Horgan, a 43-year-old senior writer
with Scientific American magazine is one of them. His book The End
of Science caused a commotion among scientists for its essence
that “pure science, the quest for knowledge about what we are and
where we came from, has already entered an area of diminishing
returns.”
For those who have depended on science to disprove the myths of the
scriptures it is time to turn back at these very early stages of
admission that science cannot enlighten anymore. It has reached its
natural limits. Now only the Spirit can take Homo sapiens beyond —
far, far beyond — the limitations of their minds. And it has begun
to do so!
Humans have done enormous damage to Nature in this blind pursuit of
materialism. Science bears a disappropriately larger responsibility
in trying to establish the superiority and dominance of humans over
all Nature, and placed a premium on mastering matter. This
scientific search began when Copernicus peered through his telescope
and found that the Earth was not the center of the universe, in
stark contrast to the holy, perfect symmetry that the Church had, in
its ignorance, infallibly asserted. Ever since then there has been a
relentless rape of the divine origin of creation and Western
civilization has been wandering in the maze of mathematics and
matter.
The cold, calculating core of science (not scientists) lacks the
human qualities of love, compassion, tenderness, and emotion.
Science is all mental, mathematical, material, logic and
tangibility. Science cannot detect Spirit, vibrations, chakras,
consciousness, thoughtless awareness, the Kingdom of Sadashiva. All
the laws of matter, physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics are
devoid of divinity and lead humankind further and further from the
Absolute Truth. For decades they have stripped away the masks of
this mysterious universe, expecting to find the mathematical mantra
that would have etched their names in atheist eternity. Instead they
have hit a colossal celestial Truth. Some of the greatest scientific
minds on Earth are now beginning to hint that the answer to the
origin of the universe will never ever be found or proven by their
grandest theories. They are also admitting that there has to be a
Creator!
The search for the origin of the universe has ended for science: the
Truth lies elsewhere. As more and more theories flounder and crash
in their quest to prove an atheist origin, the Ultimate Truth of the
Almighty Creator will slowly but surely be recognized by His atheist
adversaries. Even Stephen Hawkings, probably the most eminent
theoretical physicist in the world today, while recalling his
childhood fantasy on why the universe came into being, could only
say, “But I still do not understand why.” As long as he denies that
he lives in His creation there will be no answer.
Humans have probed and peered far enough into the universe. For
millennia they have projected all their senses outwards and yet
found no answer to the fundamental mysteries of life. Isn’t it time
to separate scientific facts from spiritual Reality, and try a new
approach by seeking from within? Simple logic and the law of
averages point to that direction.
“Atoms are so small that the full-stop at the end of this sentence
contains more than one billion of them. Tiny as it is, an atom is
entirely made up of empty space. The rest consists of protons,
neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are found clustered
together in a minute, extremely dense nucleus at the very centre of
the atom. Little bundles of energy called electrons whiz around this
nucleus at the speed of light. It is the presence of electrons that
make the atom behave like a solid, in the same way that a fan blade
spinning rapidly looks and behaves as if it were solid.”
Dr. Trevor Day, Nicholas Harris, The Incredible Journey to the
Centre of the Atom, Orpheus Books Ltd., 1996.
“Most of the atomic mass is concentrated in a tiny nucleus, only a
thousand-billionth of a centimeter in size. The nucleus is
surrounded by a cloud of lighter particles — the electrons —
extending out to a distance of perhaps a hundred-millionth of a
centimeter. Thus, by far the greater part of the atom is empty
space.”
Professor Paul Davies, God and the New Physic,
Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 146.)
“The exponential factor implies that the odds against randomly-
generated order increase astronomically. For example, the
probability of a litre of air rushing spontaneously to one end of a
box is of the order 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeros to one! Such
figures indicate the extreme care with which low-entropy states must
be selected from the vast array of possible states.
Translated into a cosmological context, the conundrum is this. If
the universe is simply an accident, the odds against it containing
any appreciable order are ludicrously small. If the big bang was
just a random event, then the probability seems overwhelming that
the emerging cosmic material would be in thermodynamic equilibrium
at maximum entropy with zero order. As this was clearly not the
case, it appears hard to escape the conclusion that the actual state
of the universe has been ‘chosen’ or selected somehow from the huge
number of available states, all but an infinitesimal fraction of
which are totally disordered. And if such an exceedingly improbable
initial state was selected, there sure had to be a selector or
designer to ‘choose’ it.”
Professor Paul Davies, God and the New Physic,
Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 167-68.)
“The accumulated gravity of the universe operates to restrain the
expansion, causing it to decelerate with time. In the primeval phase
the expansion was much faster than it is today. The universe is thus
the product of a competition between the explosive vigour of the big
bang, and the force of gravity which tries to pull the pieces back
together again. In recent years, astrophysicists have come to
realize just how delicately this competition has been balanced. Had
the big bang been weaker, the cosmos would have fallen back on
itself in a big crunch. On the other hand, had it been stronger, the
cosmic material would have dispersed so rapidly that galaxies would
not have formed. Either way, the observed structure of the universe
seems to depend very sensitively on the precise matching of
explosive vigour to gravitating power.
Just how sensitively is revealed by calculation. At the so-called
Planck time 10-43 seconds (which is the earliest moment at which the
concept of space and time has meaning) the matching was accurate to
a staggering one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000. That is to say, had the explosion differed
in strength at the outset by only one part in 10 (-60)
(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000, 000, 000,
000,000,000,000,000) the universe we now perceive would not exist.”
Professor Paul Davies, God and the New Physic,
Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 179.)
"Adi
In the beginning, to be sure, nothing existed, neither the heaven
nor the earth nor space in between.
So Nonbeing, having decided to be, became spirit and said: “Let me
be!''
He warmed himself further and from this heating was born fire.
He warmed himself still further and from this heating was born
light. TB II, 2, 9, 1-2
Numerous texts are to be found in the Vedic scriptures, of
extraordinary diversity and incomparable richness, which seek
unweariedly to penetrate the mystery of the beginnings and to
explain the immensity and the amazing harmony of the universe. We
find a proliferation of speculations, doubts, and descriptions, an
atmosphere charged with solemnity, a sense of life lived to the
full — all of which spontaneously bring to mind the landscape of the
Himalayas. These texts seem to burst forth impetuously like streams
issuing from glaciers. Within this rushing torrent may be discerned
a certain life view, deep and basic, an evolving life view that can
yet be traced unbroken from the Rig Veda, through the Atharva Veda
and the Brahmanas, to the Upanishads.
What is fascinating about the experience of the Vedic seers is not
only that they have dared to explore the outer space of being and
existence, piercing the outskirts of reality, exploring the
boundaries of the universe, describing being and its universal laws,
but that they have also undertaken the risky and intriguing
adventure of going beyond and piercing the being barrier so as to
float in utter nothingness, so to speak, and discover that Nonbeing
is only the outer atmosphere of Being, its protective veil. They
plunge thus into a darkness enwrapped by darkness, into the Beyond
from which there is no return, into that Prelude of Existence in
which there is neither Being nor Nonbeing, neither God nor Gods, nor
creature of any type; the traveler himself is volatilized, has
disappeared. Creation is the act by which God, or whatever name we
may choose to express the Ultimate, affirms himself not only vis-à-
vis the world, thus created, but also vis-à-vis himself, for he
certainly was neither creator before creation nor God for himself.
The Vedic seers make the staggering claim of entering into that
enclosure where God is not yet God, where God is thus unknown to
himself, and, not being creator, is “nothing.” ”
Professor Raimundo Panikkar, The Vedic Experience,
www.cybrlink.com/vedtoc.htm
“Mr. Horgan contends that science is a victim of its own success.
Astronomers have seen as much of the universe as they ever will.
Physicists have probed as deeply into the nature of matter as
practical experiments will allow. And biologists have been finished
since Darwin conceived of evolution in the 1850s . . . Mr. Horgan
says scientists are just fooling themselves . . . We’ll never know
what existed before the universe began, what processes give rise to
consciousness, or what physical rules lie beyond the ones that are
currently understood, he argues. Those things simply lie beyond the
reach of scientific investigation, so any theorizing or speculating
about them is what he labels “ironic” science. “It’s ironic in the
sense that real science can be taken as literally true,” Mr. Horgan
said. “They have gone beyond what science can do . . . It is
meaningless in human terms . . . It doesn’t tell us about the
purpose of the universe and our place in it, and all those sorts of
things.”
The Globe and Mail, August 13, 1996
“In recent times there has been a proliferation of literature
drawing parallels between holonomis theories of light, quantum
physics, and the mystics’ view of integral wholeness. As a culture
we have looked primarily to Western science to alleviate human
suffering and to understand our purpose in the scheme of things. But
is science capable of freeing us from all suffering? Can science
guide us to a direct mystical experience through the bliss of
integrating with the One Light? Is there a parallel between modern
physics and the yoga of sacred art regarding the nature of light and
consciousness? . . .
The mechanistic parameters of Western science have permeated our
perceptions, our thinking, our emotions, and even our ways of
relating to one another. The result had been nothing less than a
total fragmentation of our collective consciousness. The scientific
worldview has led to the neglect of our intuitive spiritual
perceptions and the creative developments of our souls — which,
according to the sages of the East, are there to lead to greater
understanding and release us from ignorance, laws of duality, and
suffering. Because it is constrained within the laws of polarities,
science by itself cannot help us to achieve wholeness. As Yogananda
says:
“The entire phenomenal world is under the inexorable sway of
polarity; no law of physics, chemistry, or any other science is ever
found free from inherent opposite or contrasted principles.
Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of maya: the
very fabric and structure of creation . . . Future scientists can do
no more than probe one aspect after another of her varied
infinitude. Science thus remains in a perpetual flux, unable to
reach finality . . .” ”
Judith Cornell, PH. D. Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing,
Theosophical Publishing, 1994 p. 27-29.
“We are all literally made up of stardust,” said astronomer George
Smoot of the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory
and author of Wrinkles in Time. This much we know. But where that
first pinpoint of intense energy came from — what unleashed its
force to explode outward over billions of light-years of space; what
set that power loose to evolve over the billions of years since into
the intricately interconnected system of planets and stars; what
brilliant design could set forth the pattern of development that
could bring as complex a structure as humans into being — the
scientists cannot explain or are uncomfortable explaining because it
requires them to suddenly trade their theories and facts for the
possibility that a supreme force beyond their explanations set it
all in motion for a purpose.
“Facing this, the ultimate question challenges our faith in the
power of science to find explanations of nature,” Smoot wrote. “Is
this then where scientific explanation breaks down and God takes
over?” ”
Walter Mercado, Beyond The Horizon,
A Time Warner Company, 1997 p. 51-2.
“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is
the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and
stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifests
itself as the highest wisdom, and the most radiant beauty which our
dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive form — this
knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness. The
Cosmic religious experience is the strongest and oldest mainspring
of scientific research.
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable
superior spirit who reveals himself in the slightest details we are
able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply
emotional conviction of the presence of the superior reasoning
power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my
idea of God.
Religion without science is blind and science without religion is
lame . . . The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can
experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all
true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no
longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know
that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as
the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull
faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms — this
knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of true religiousness.”
Albert Einstein
“We must first know what is Absolute Truth. We have human awareness.
We also have freedom to form our own mental ideas. But Truth cannot
be known through human awareness . . . Any type of mental projection
or ideology ultimately will recoil back because it has to be
substantiated by Reality.”
Shri Nirmama Devi
Moscow, Soviet Union — June 25, 1990
Nirmama (164th): Without selfishness.
“What has gone wrong with the West is that they have never worried
about their Spirit. They have negated all that is Spirit, all that
is subtler life and have thought that it is better to master the
matter, master all these things which they master . . . Whatever you
master is lower than you, is not higher than you . . . If you want
to be higher then you have to be useful to that higher goal . . . we
should allow the Higher thing to rule us.
So in ancient times so many people, we can call as seers and saints,
went into the forest to find out what is the basis of human beings?
What is the meaning of human life? What is the ultimate goal of
human beings. And they found out that it is the Spirit. And they
based all the Indian laws and Indian philosophies, music, art,
dance, drama — every aspect of life — on the basis that we have to
become the Spirit. But when we have the western influence and
western education put on to us, everyone decided that give up
whatever was traditional, whatever was old, and take to this.”
Shri Sanakadi-samaradhya Devi
Importance Of Self-Realization, Delhi, India — February 8, 1983
Sanakadi-samaradhya (726th): Worshipped by sages like Sanaka. . .
She appears as Guru to the seekers because She is the source of all
Knowledge.
“The other type of people are who think no end of their
intelligence. They have denied God. They say, "Where is God? There
is no God. We don’t believe in God. This is all nonsense. Science is
everything." What has science done so far, let’s see that? Science
has done nothing so far. It has only done all dead work. It has only
made you ego-oriented.”
Shri Panca-tanmatra-sayaka Devi
Kundalini And Kalki Shakti, Bombay, India — September 28, 1979
Panca-tanmatra-sayaka (11th): She has in the fourth hand an arrow
symbolic of the sense elements. By shooting with the mind as bow the
arrow of the five sense elements, She creates the Universe, a
projection of the mind through the senses.
“There are three questions which science cannot answer — How are we
here? what are we here for? and what are we going to do? These three
questions can be answered in Sahaja Yoga after Self-Realization . .
Science is not conclusive. It does not give you Absolute Truth. It
goes on changing from this to that . . . we don’t know the Absolute
Truth.”
Shri Manorupeksu-kodanda Devi
United Nations Public Program, New York, USA — September 9, 1992
Manorupeksu-kodanda (10th): In the left lower hand She has the sugar-
cane bow which symbolises the Samkalpa (power of desire) of the mind
which creates the phenomenal Universe.
“The only thing we can enjoy is the Play of the Spirit . . . Till
the Knowledge of this Science does not come within us, the outside
science is absolutely useless because there is very little of
science that can explain about the material things outside. There is
no comparison of this outside science — no collectivity, no
humanity, no love, no art, no poem, no respect. There is nothing
alive in it. It becomes like a machine.”
Shri Sadasad-rupadharini Devi
Shivaratri Puja, Pune, India — February 23, 1990
Sadasad-rupadharini (661st): She assumes the form of existence and
non-existence. She is the source of this universe of name and form
and the unseen cause behind it. ‘Satyam Canrtam Ca, Satyamabhavat’
(Taittiriya Upanishad) Both Reality and unreality emanated from the
Ultimate reality. The power of illusion i.e. Maya-Saktii who creates
the illusion of the Universe.
“And He can do anything that He feels like and we are nothing. We
are nothing. There should be no rationality about it; about
understanding God’s miracles. How can it be? How could it be? You
can’t explain . . . we are limited people. We have limited powers.
We cannot understand how God could be All Powerful because we
haven’t got the capacity. So this God who is our Creator, who is our
Preserver, the One who desired that we should exist, who is our
existence itself, is All-Powerful God.”
Shri Nijaruna-prabha-pura-majjad-brahmanda-mandala Devi
Mahashivaratri Puja, Pandarpur, India — February 29, 1984
Nijaruna-prabha-pura-majjad-brahmanda-mandala (12th): Her red
brilliance engulfs all the Universes. It means all the created
Universe is only Her radiance.
“Thus this mind is created like bubbles on the Ocean of Reality, but
that’s not Reality. With this mind whatever we decide we know its
very limited, illusive and sometimes shocking. The mind always moves
in a linear direction and because there is no Reality in it, it
recoils and boomerangs. Thus all the enterprises, all the
projections so far we have done it seems come back to us. Whatever
they discover comes back to us as a big destructive Power or a very
big shock. So one has to decide what to do, how to be out of this
trap of our mind — Kundalini is the solution . . . With the
awakening She takes you beyond your mind.”
Shri Pada-dvaya-prabha-jala-parakrta-sororuha Devi
The Witnessing State: To Know God, Shivaratri Puja, Sydney,
Australia — March 3, 1996
“It was such a solace and such a hope that people who apparently
appear to be in the charge of helm-of-affairs, are also in charge of
the helm-of-affairs of God. A day will come when they will take up
their new roles, when they will become aware that it is God who
rules them. It is He who does it, it is He who has created
everything, and it is He who enjoys everything.
For this awareness . . . the seeking ultimately has to come to human
beings because all that is done through mental projections and
conceptions has one good point — that it is always exposed and comes
to an end. Every set enterprise of human beings only moves in a
linear way and at a point it drops down. That is why all our
conceptions and all our ideas are challenged after some time.”
Shri Ksetra-Svarupa Devi
Ksetra-Svarupa (341st): The highest consciousness to the grossest
matter and space consists of Ksetra. It is Her form.
Nirmama (164th): Without selfishness.
Sanakadi-samaradhya (726th): Worshipped by sages like Sanaka. . .
She appears as Guru to the seekers because She is the source of all
Knowledge.
Panca-tanmatra-sayaka (11th): She has in the fourth hand an arrow
symbolic of the sense elements. By shooting with the mind as bow the
arrow of the five sense elements, She creates the Universe, a
projection of the mind through the senses.
Manorupeksu-kodanda (10th): In the left lower hand She has the sugar-
cane bow which symbolises the Samkalpa (power of desire) of the mind
which creates the phenomenal Universe.
Sadasad-rupadharini (661st): She assumes the form of existence and
non-existence. She is the source of this universe of name and form
and the unseen cause behind it. ‘Satyam Canrtam Ca, Satyamabhavat’
(Taittiriya Upanishad) Both Reality and unreality emanated from the
Ultimate reality. The power of illusion i.e. Maya-Saktii who creates
the illusion of the Universe.
Nijaruna-prabha-pura-majjad-brahmanda-mandala (12th): Her red
brilliance engulfs all the Universes. It means all the created
Universe is only Her radiance.
Ksetra-Svarupa (341st): The highest consciousness to the grossest
matter and space consists of Ksetra. It is Her form.
--- In adishakti_sahaja_yoga@yahoogroups.com, "jagbir singh"
>
>
> "The follower of Sakthism, the worshipper of Shakti, is called
> Shakta. His conception of the Goddess is described in the Shakti
> Tantra Shastras, i.e., the holy scriptures of Sakthism, often in a
> very poetical way. Whereas we speak of Mother Nature only in a
> comparative manner, for the Shakta it is absolute reality. Nature
> is Her body. Her presence is personally felt by him, when he is
> standing on the fertile ground of the earth; he touches Her life in
> the blossoms of the pure lotus-flower. She animates all living
> creatures. His own body is a part of Her great body. Worshipping
> Her in all Her different forms, he will find Her light, too,
> within his mind and consciousness. Thus, to the Shakta the whole
> universe of mind and matter reveals itself in its unity; he see
> before him Her great body which he adores; Her sacred feet, Her
> heart, Her mind.
>
> It might be useful to describe this poetical view, which is at once
> physical and transcendental, by means of another diagram. We may
> for this purpose represent matter and mind by two circles , which
> intersect each other.
>
> Where they intersect, there is Shakti, so to speak, in Herself. But
> Her influence, Her being spreads into the whole realm of matter as
> well as that of mind. Nowhere is She absent, but Her presence is
> less distinct, is somehow veiled in those parts, which are further
> from the centre, where She is in Herself. Thus, for the sake of
> linear explanation, the mineral world--the solid matter--would have
> to be situated the furthest from Her, because there, as for
> instance in stone, she--Life Herself--is, much veiled, stone to
> the ordinary human view appearing to be dead. Nearer to Her is the
> realm of plants, where, with their growing and blossoming, She
> already becomes more apparent. I need hardly remind you of the
> well-known researches by Sir Jagadish Bhose of the University of
> Calcutta, who is endeavouring to make visible the actual heartbeat
> of plant life. Then, in due order with regard to Her would come
> the world of animals, which being animated have within their life--
> although perhaps still unconsciously--some access to Her. Lastly,
> within the highly developed organism of man She, for the first
> time, is inherent in her essential being. There She finds the
> possibility of being consciously awakened, so that she appears to
> him, who is looking and striving for her, in Her true nature as
> Shakti herself. The other side--the mind circle--comprises the
> mental faculties of man such as consciousness, will, feeling and
> logical perception, which, with regard to their aptitude for Her
> realisation, may be put in such order. The directions of
> development therefore go in the matter-circle from left to right--
> from stone, vegetable, animal to man, where Shakti will be
> realised; in the mind-circle, from right to left--from mere
> logical thinking to feeling, will-power, consciousness to man--
> where Shakti may be realised. Thus, as you can see from this
> diagram, everywhere there is Shakti. She is inherent in everything
> and at the same time transcends every thing; by meditation and
> religious ceremonies She may be realized everywhere, being
> inherent in the whole physical universe as it is given to us. And,
> moreover, above this we may touch Her in Her transcendental aspect
> as well. When She appears in Her true nature, then there is no
> more mind or matter, but only She Herself, in no sense bounded by
> such limitations. As such a one She may well be represented by a
> circle, the universe in its true aspect.
>
> To the European it may perhaps at first sight appear to be a mere
> poetical presentment and but little different from the theory of
> vitalism of modern natural science or from ancient animism in the
> religious aspect. But with regard to Vitalism, even if there be
> similarities the essential difference seems to me, that the
> Vitalism of the natural sciences is based principally upon the
> conception of a material world which is regarded as being animated
> by, for instance, the "lan vitale" of Bergson. But Sakthism holds
> its standpoint entirely on the spiritual side. She, the great
> mother, exists, and what in the material world is vitalised or
> animated, certainly comes from Her, but is only a veiled
> appearance of Her, who in Her true being can be experienced
> spiritually. And Sakthism is also not animism, if by animism may
> be understood the primitive idea of everything being ghost-like,
> being animated by "Phi" or spirits, resulting in as many ghostly
> spirits as there are different things. Sakthism represents a
> spiritual unity, all different things being united within Her
> always-greater aspect.
>
> The principal doctrine of "Sakthism", that the whole Universe of
> mind and matter is created by Her, the Powerful Goddess Shakti, is
> described in full detail, with Indian accuracy in spiritual
> matters, in the Cosmogony of Sakthism. It must be understood that
> every great Indian philosophical system has its own Cosmo-Genesis,
> that is, its special conception of the evolution of the world and
> its beginning. As a matter of fact, every conception of life and
> the Universe requires such a foundation to give it the necessary
> firm hold. For Sakthism this source, out of which the Universe as
> mind and matter has evolved, is the female spiritual Power,
> Shakti, who is the Great Mother of the Universe. In Her most
> concentrated form, when Her Power is just ready to expand, She is
> represented by a point called Bindu. This Bindu Point is mere
> Spirit. Everything manifested and created in this Universe has
> Spirit. Everything manifested and created in this Universe has
> Spirit as its source and essence. In the Christian Cosmo-Genesis
> of the Gospel of St. John it is called "logos" or "the word". By
> expansion the Spiritual Power Shakti becomes, going through many
> different stages, Mind, Life, and Matter. She--the Goddess--is
> contained, in all the manifestations of the universe, but She
> remains, so to speak, unexhausted by being the material cause of
> the Universe. She in Her essence remains unaffected and greater
> than all the created world.
>
> In a diagrammatic way this cosmogenetic evolution can be
> represented like this. The active, most concentrated Point Bindu
> is red, the colour of activity. From this point the lines of
> evolution expand through the stages of mind and life towards
> matter, the mineral world. So the material world stands not first
> but last in the evolution of the Universe.
>
> According to the general doctrine of Indian metaphysics, this whole
> created universe is not everlasting but will one day be dissolved.
> The life or appearance of the universe lasts, as it is figuratively
> expressed, one day of Brahma, the Almighty, that is, millions and
> millions of years. After that the whole expansion contracts again
> in the opposite direction; first, matter will be dissolved, then
> life and mind will disappear till it reaches the state of the
> beginning, the spiritual Point, Bindu, where it will find its
> rest; until the dawn of a new day of Brahma, when a new creation
> will start. This Bindu Point is the great Goddess, the universal
> mother--womb--yoni--the creator and receiver of the Universe,
> which, as Shakti, is worshipped by the followers of Sakthism.
>
> The Indian Religion of the Goddess Shakti
> DR. HANS KOESTER
> THE JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY
> Vol.23, part 1
> 1929 July
>
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